Oculus Rift - Q&A

[LuckyNoS7evin]

Okay so up until recently I didn't know what Oculus Rift was and after a "quick" look there are questions, lots of questions...For my questions I'll use OR = Oculus Right

1. I where glasses
   
   1. How will OR fit?
   2. Will I need my glasses on?
2. How is it powered? (yet another plug! )
3. What connection is it going to use on your PC? Will it be compatible with most/all GFX cards?
4. what res are the screens running at? what's the DPI? it's going to be in front of your face are you going to see pixels?
5. will it make games more expensive?
6. Is it only a few developers that said they would do it, is it going to be another gimmick which dies in 12 months?

I know some of the above will have already been answered or you lot may know but I would like to get this going as although interested I'm not "sold" 100%

[LordJuanlo]

1) The Oculus Rift Developer Kit includes 3 pairs of eyecups. One for normal vision and two for nearsighted people (light and severe). It's not ideal but it should work for lots of people. In some of the Rift videos I have seen people wearing glasses trying the developer kit. The consumer version should have a "solution" for people using glasses, although they haven't said how.

2) It has a wire going from the headset to a small control unit. That control unit connects to the wall, to USB and to the output of the graphics card.

3) It was said that DVI was the only connection available, but the latest pictures of the control box show an HDMI input too.

4) Screen resolution is 1280x800, so that makes 640x800 per eye. It's a fairly low res and my guess is that you will be able to see individual pixels easily. It's like watching a mobile phone screen through a magnification glass. The consumer version will have a better screen.

5) Games have to render two 640x800 viewports, so I guess it should be less expensive than playing at 1920x1080 with native support games.

6) In my opinion it will change everything, it will be the biggest change in PC gaming since the 3Dfx Voodoo. I think it's going to be a huge success. Valve has already implemented beta support in Team Fortress 2 (the patch was released yesterday) and hopefully they will implement it in all their games. Dice bought several developer kits and they are working to integrate native support in their Frostbite engine. The Oculus SKD provides native integration in Unreal Engine and Unity, and John Carmak will probably integrate it into id Software engine.

[tepescovir]

The 640x800 per eye is supposed to be for the developer kit. They have said the retails will have a higher resolution, but they havent conformed what res it will be.
I imagine cost will be the issue. A 21x9 screen at 2560 x 1080 or 2560x800 would be superb, but they would be very expensive in that size. But a 1920x1080 should be easily doable as you find screens that size in lots of cameras and camcorders.

[Bifurk8]

I'm interested in the tech mostly for it's head tracking capabilities. I'm a long time fan of TrackIR for increased immersion in racing and flight sims but most first person games, other than Arma , have eschewed it at least in part thanks to NaturalPoint's insistence on keeping a closed SDK. So far, it sounds like a lot more developers are going to be working on head tracking support in their games for Occulus Rift. And, it sounds like not only developers are getting in on it, but modders too! After his great work on implementing TrackIR support in games like NFS: Shift, I can't wait to see what Racer_S and others can do with Occulus Rift.

[crispy]

I agree these are very exciting times,
the biggest change since the voodoo 3dfx
I remember that's when I just got into pc gaming just before they came out
I think I grabbed myself a 2mb or a 4mb version and I was playing need for speed!
I really cant wait top see where the oc goes I think/hope it will be massive
playing games like iracing or arma 3 would be unreal
as soon as u put the oc on your not playing a game... u are the game
no distractions all u see is the game..... cant wait

[LuckyNoS7evin]

So if they go single 1920x1080 screen with the 1920 being shared over both eyes so 960x1080 per eye , they can run at 60Hz due to the fact they will render a different image per eye creating the 3D and therefore no need for 120Hz. So in todays games take Crysis 3, Far Cry 3 and ARMA 3 you are looking at a 660Ti or 7870? to run these at a solid 60FPS with good enough quality for being that close to our face.

Am I talking bull? or am I on the right track?

If you are thinking of the "I'll go with Rift over triple-wide" will it be cheaper? or is it a completely different concept to the triple-wide? It about the immersion with both systems, but can rift "replace" triple-wide or are some of us going for both!

[WormSlayer]

60hz is the bare minimum, ideally they would like to use 120hz for the commercial Rift but it remains to be seen who they can make a deal with. All the really sexy new screens are being hoarded by the big boys for their exclusive products.

It's a totally different experience from any kind of monitor setup.

[LordJuanlo]

If you are thinking of the "I'll go with Rift over triple-wide" will it be cheaper? or is it a completely different concept to the triple-wide? It about the immersion with both systems, but can rift "replace" triple-wide or are some of us going for both!

This is a very interesting question. Right now I'm used to have a huge horizontal field of view with my three monitors. I like standing still in Battlefield 3 and peering into my left and right monitors for incoming enemies. With the Oculus Rift, I guess that I will feel inside binoculars and the field of view will be much lower, it could be even lower than a single display, so I should be moving my head left and right instead of moving my eyeballs.

Conclusion: we need a triplewide Rift

[Wijkert]

I don't think that the oculus rift is ideal for competitive gaming. It's all about the emersion, not about seeing you opponent early in you peripheral vision. I am very excited about this product, but would use it for single player games.

[LordJuanlo]

My Oculus Rift Development Kit just arrived. Can't wait to get home and give it a try!

[Hatlesschimp]

My Oculus Rift Development Kit just arrived. Can't wait to get home and give it a try!

how is it?

[Haldi]

Integration of Oculus Rift into UNIGINE Engine is completed, now you can navigate virtual worlds with increased immersion by means of AppOculus engine plugin (available for Windows, Linux and Mac). As you see, we are also preparing Oculus-compatible updates of Heaven and Valley benchmarks to be publicly released soon.

http://unigine.com/devlog/

[helifax]

Very interesting...

BUT:

Mounted helm (BIG -)
Low resolution (BIG -)
One screen support (BIG -)
Head Tracking (BIG ++)

=> (-)(-)(-)(++) = (-)
Therefore I would 10000% stick with 3D Vision Surround or AMD 3D rather than this...although if nVIDIA or AMD would also add head tracking I think we will have a clear winner:))

(Just my 2 cents)